News

Dale's poem - "Slave To The Cat", which can be found in creativity corner has been published in the book (a poetry collection) called Animal Antics 2010 and available from all good booksellers and libraries. The book came out on 31st October 2010, and the poem can be found on page 321 . . . they obviously saved the best til last!!!!

My new friend, Chris Staat of Ohio, is continuing with our 6 Degrees of Separation experiment. He has written an article about us and our experiment on his genealogy web site Staats Place.

Read it, its an excellent article and really well written. Reading it has gotten me all excited again about this experiment. He is sending me a letter, and I will let you know how that works out. He also encouraged his readers to contact me in the same way - well I would now like to extend an invitation to all of the Self Hope visitors out there to attempt to contact Chris in the same way . . .the link to his site above will furnish you with all of the information you need to begin your own chain.

Its exciting and its fun enjoy.

Dale

PS My 6 Degrees of Separation article has now been published independently - unfortunately I have no way of finding out where, but watch out for it

Here's an update on my experiments concerning the Six Degrees Of Separation theory.

The original lengthy experiment has so far yielded nothing, in fact it appears to have fallen at the first hurdle ! Not saying it has failed (I may just not have had the copied email), there is still plenty of time to go . . . .some people just automatically can emails like that, others dont see the point in conintuing them. This happened remember with the original experiments (if you've read the article)?

Chris Staats' experiment with me (remember the guy from Ohio who's blog I commented on) however, has yielded some results. Although some of the connections are a little sketchy, they are still within the guidlines of the theory. Thus, Chris reports, after sending just 2 emails, that he and I are separated by just 4 degrees or 3 intermediaries :

Me (Dale Preece-Kelly)

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V

James Hetfield (Metallica)

(I shook his hand once at a gig and he is one of my Facebook friends)

(This is the sketchy one)

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V

Robert Trujillo (Metallica bassist)

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V

Carole Darby

(Personal friend of both Robert and Chris Staats)

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V

Chris Staats

So there you go, as I say a little sketchy, but proving, that even though Chris was unknown to me until 2 weeks ago, we are actually only 4 steps away from each other in the chain of life. Amazing and cool at the same time.

Our articles, once they have been featured on the website are also featured on another website - EzineArticles dot com (just click on the button above to go there). This website takes articles and puts them on their site, once they have been assessed by writing experts. We do this because it helps to get our names "out there" and bring visitors to our site, who will hopefully benefit from it

Today I heard that I had been awarded Platinum status by the site. To quote the notification : "You have now earned our "PLATINUM" membership level. This is a status that can not be bought and can only be earned by sending in quality articles.Only a small fraction of our thousands of authors ever obtain this level."

We felt that this represented a milestone in the relatively short life span of our website and wanted to share it with you. On top of this milestone, articles can be picked up there and taken and published elsewhere - but just remember - you saw it here first!!!

Please visit the site (Ezine - just push the button!) where you can rate and comment on the articles I have published there!

We have today published an article exploring The 6 Degrees of Separation concept - that we are all only separated by 6 steps!

I found this to be absolutely fascinating when researching the article. So much so that I found I became compelled by the thought, almost obssessed! To think that we are never alone, only ever 6 steps away from that comforting arm or reassuring voice. Think in another way - we are all just 6 steps away from the Queen of England!

During research, I decided I would conduct my own experiment, and so I have! I have selected at random, an individual in Lithuania. I have now begun the chain to reach him in just 6 steps via email. I will keep you all posted on the progress of my experiment on this blog.

Thats not it though. During my research I happened upon a blog, by a guy in Cleveland, Ohio, USA called Chris Staats (http://www.staatsofohio.com/) who showed that he was just 5 steps away from George Washington - one time President of the USA. Chris has since contacted me via Facebook and believes that he and I could be just 2 or 3 steps away from each other, and so between us we are attempting to prove this. Again, I will keep you updated.

Ever said to someone you've been having a conversation with - "Its a small world"? Well thats what this concept is all about - it is both fascinating and addictive and will be a talking point for me for a long while. If you think you have a story, or an instance that proves the theory of The Six Degrees of Separation then please leave a comment or email me [email protected] or start a discussion on our forum.

We have also today published a poem "A Dream - Vision For The Future ?" inspired by a dream I had last night in glorious technicolour. You will find it in the "Creativity Corner " Section. The 6 Degrees article is published in the Lifestyle area.

Thankyou and, maybe, I'll be seeing you sometime soon - you never know

We've been looking for a while, for a way of allowing your feedback to be visible on the site and then commented on by other visitors.

Thanks to Chris' suggestion (see comments on blog below) we have now added a Forum application to the site. This application will make the site more interactive for users and allow all of our visitors to talk to each other and discuss the content of the site with each other.

Please give it a go - I have started it off with a subject concerning your favourite article so far - please feel free to add your own discussions and give us feedback on the site, put forward suggestions for the site, or even ask for advice on the subjects that you are concerned about.

Well only you can decide on this one, because this will be a page totally dictated by you and filled with your content. Althoughyou must remember that we arent psychologists or qualified health practitioners, but we are thinking of adding a problem page to our site.

Let us know what you think by commenting on this blog, or emailing us at [email protected] , or going to Facebook and becoming a fan of the page "Self Hope For The Helpless" and commenting there.